In observance of the Second Day for the People, Water, Life, and Land on 10 April, there was held a Meeting of Experiences for Consultation amidst Infrastructural and Developmentalist Projects in the city of Oaxaca de Juárez. Representatives from indigenous and campesino peoples and members and organizations of civil society hailing from the states of Oaxaca, Puebla, Chiapas, Tabasco, Jalisco, Nayarit, Colima, Veracruz, and Distrito Federal met “to discuss and analyze the exercise of our right to decide about legislative and administrative measures as well as ‘developmental’ projects which affect our lands and territories, putting at risk our ways of life.”

At this meeting, the organizations and social processes defending land and territory shared their experiences, including the use of “closed season” for the use of water in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca; the El Zapotillo dam in Jalisco; the wind-energy projects in the Tehuantepec Isthmus; the Las Cruces (Nayarit) and Paso de la Reyna (Oaxaca) dam projects and the “Independence Aqueduct” in Sonora; the hydroelectric dams in Puebla and Veracruz; and the Plan for Territorial Exploitation on the Usumacinta River in Chiapas and Tabasco. As a central question, the great difficulty of implementing consultative processes vis-a-vis megaprojects was debated, given that “the Mexican State is promoting a series of consultations that do not respect international standards, but rather lead to a climate of harassment against communal defenders who oppose these projects,” as participants expressed in a final document. They added that the “information we receive is only partial and distorted; it does not allow us to have a clear understanding of what the impacts are of said projects. Furthermore, the process that continues is rigged, as there is no guarantee of impartiality. The result is a number of simulated consultations. In this way, we denounce the interference of power-groups and armed bands that are allied to the firms within this consultative process.”

Members of CECOP in opposition to the hydroelectric dam project La Parota

On September 3, 2008, Jacinto Solís Vázquez, a member of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the dam La Parota (CECOP, Consejo de Ejidos y Comunidades Opositores a la presa La Parota), was detained by agents from the Ministerial Police (PIM) who transported him to the Las Cruces detention center in the municipality of Acapulco, Guerrero. Solís was detained under a warrant which had been cancelled in 2004 after an appeal was made. After 20 hours in police custody, he was released despite the fact that the Sixth Court (of the penal branch ascribed to the detention center in Las Cruces) justified the arrest stating that the PIM agents were unaware of the fact that the arrest warrant was no longer valid.

According to the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center of the Montaña (CDHM Tlachinollan, Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña “Tlachinollan”), these events are just one example of how the government continues in its intent to hinder the CECOP movement. It is important to remember that on July 30, during a visit to Acapulco, the Secretary of the Interior, Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo, declared that the hydroelectric dam project, La Parota, would continue in force. His comments seem to confirm the fact that neither the federal nor the state governments have taken the position of the CECOP or the recommendations made by the UN to suspend the project, into consideration. The CDHM Tlachinollan considers the arrest of members of CECOP, such as that of Solís, El CDHM Tlachinollan considera que las detenciones de miembros del CECOP, como la de Solís, part of a “strategy that the state government has been following in order to generate an confrontational environment in response to its plan to sujugate, silence and criminalize those in opposition and resistence to the construction of la Parota.”